9/18/08 • Relationship btw A to P: a child to its mother o Still establishes deep affection btw two men • Offers to Achilles’ a middle way: sending out Patroklus • In book 9, A preoccupied with songs; has been idle, anger is boring and old, predisposed to accepting proposal of P (will not go back, but concern for fellow soldiers is taken care of by middle ground o “Let this anger be a thing of the past” o Begins with eagerness to decide what battlefield will be like with P; “don’t take Troy, that’s left for me” o Concerned with glory/still doubting worth of system  Formulaic scenes: P dons armor of A, sequencial order – last element is picking up of spear (A’s father); spear is too heavy for P to lift. Symbol of inadequacy – other, two divine horses and a mortal horse (Pedisus) • P meets ally of the Trojans named Sarpedon (son of Zeus); about to kill him, camera shift to the heavens. Zeus has a choice to save his son; were he to do so, Hera says, will awaken grim resentment among other gods with mortal children. o Zeus weeps for death of his own son; no death for gods, and so no tragedy? Untrue; living beyond the death of those who they love is the one divine tragedy. That which makes comedy also makes tragedy – immortality. o Hector must avenge death, and so P and H meet on the battlefield • P goes too far toward Troy; Homer comments on the possible alternatives – “Had he only obeyed Achilles, he would have escaped death” o Apollo takes him first, a boy stabs him, Hector finishes him off gruesomely • There is generated in us an affection for Hector; his killing of P almost loses

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